I was mowing the lawn...unfortunately the grass just keeps growing and doesn't realize I have a 19 month old baby I must keep up with! But we were doing pretty good! I was mowing and he was playing right in the area I was in. I had a little kiddie pool set up, so he was in and out of that. I had just a little bit of water in it, since when mowing you are going back and forth and it is nearly impossible to have your eyes on a child at every second. But the area I was mowing was a small one, just the little part in front of my house. So I was never very far from him and I kept a constant check on him.
It was just before lunch and I had just finished mowing. I was putting back the chairs to my lawn furniture and a couple of other things that I had moved in order to mow. Again, if I had my back to Cade I was constantly checking behind me to make sure was he ok.
I had just slid a chair under the table and turned to get Cade and go into the house. So as I turn and start to walk towards him, I noticed he was walking towards me and staring down curiously at his hands. He was turning his hands and looking at something that I began to realize his hands were covered in. I then noticed that his legs, chest, and arms had this same substance all over them. Then my heart bounced in my chest as I realized that it was blood.
But the situation didn't make any sense, he was quite covered in blood, but he wasn't crying. There was blood every where and yet there was no worry, panic, or tears of any kind coming from Cade. He was just staring curiously at it, as if it were finger paint or something. My eyes darted around the yard looking for anything to help me make sense of the situation. Quite frankly if someone has that much blood on them, well they should be crying! That should just be a rule! Covered in blood...ok cry! I wondered to myself if I had perhaps hit the dog with the lawn mower and she was bleeding to death. But nothing was out of place and there were no signs of anything that could explain the scene before me. The whole thought process only took a matter of seconds and my brain was just not comprehending what was going on.
I hurried to him and began checking him to see just where the blood was coming from. He had so much of it I couldn't tell where it was coming from. As much as there was I just knew there had to be a gaping hole somewhere on his body. I stripped him down to his diaper and still had no idea where he could be bleeding from. So I rushed him into the house and into the bathroom. I put him in the tub and began rinsing him off in order to find the source of the bleed. He was standing in front of the faucet and had his right hand on the side of the bath tub. His hands were so bloody that the side of the tub was smeared with blood. I used a cup to rinse his body, so there was blood splashed about the tub. Had anyone walked in at that moment, they surely would have thought it a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Never at any point did he cry, so I just couldn't figure out what he could have done. I never found the gaping wound that I was sure I would find.
I soon found the source of the bleed, it was his right thumb. He had a vertical slice on the ball of his thumb, not directly in the middle, but to the outside right. It wasn't more than a few centimeters long. Blood was coming from the slice quite fast, so I grabbed a towel and applied pressure to get it to stop, which took a few minutes. I couldn't believe so much blood had come from such a tiny wound! After the bleeding had stopped I tried to determine just how deep the incision was. I would have never taken him to the doctor for such a tiny cut, but because so much blood had come out, I kind of thought it must be deep. It wasn't gaping so I had to apply just a tiny bit of pressure on either side in order to open it. But when I did that blood would spurt out. I couldn't tell how deep it was, so I determined it was deep enough to see the doctor. I put a band-aid on him and then wrapped his thumb with medical tape in order to keep pressure on it. I also didn't want him taking the band-aid off and messing with it.
I called the doctor's office and explained the situation. They of course told me to bring him in right away because if he needed stitches that was something that needed to be done as soon as possible. I was sweaty and dirty from mowing, not to mention the smears of blood on my arms from carrying Cade inside. I wiped myself down with a wash cloth and changed clothes. Then I dressed Cade and left for the pediatrician. I have never ever left my house looking as I did. My hair was wet with sweat at the top of my forehead and the base of my neck. I appeared sweaty in general and my feet and legs were dirty. I wore flip flops while mowing, which I know is a no-no, so my feet were clearly dirty from being sprayed with the fine debris that came out from under the mower. While it wasn't a life threatening emergency, it was something I couldn't take time to shower and beautify myself for. So I looked like white trash from the sticks when I walked in. To top it off, Cade's Nike sandals were wet because he put them in the pool, so he was barefoot! We were a sight!
I checked in and was told to go sit in the chairs behind the reception office. That was good because I knew I was going to be seen pretty fast. I also wouldn't have to sit in the main waiting room with people staring at me and wondering why I came to a doctors appointment all dirty! So I sat down with Cade in my lap and for the first time actually started to relax a little. After a couple of minutes of just sitting there something really weird happened. I was suddenly over come with some serious emotion! I just had an overwhelming urge to cry my eyes out. It took everything I had to control my emotions and not break down and cry. And I couldn't understand why! I knew the cut wasn't so bad and I knew Cade was ok, it wasn't a life threatening injury. Looking back, I think I went into auto pilot when I saw Cade covered as he was with blood. I have never been in a situation where so much blood came from one person. So I think when I finally arrived at the doctors office my auto pilot shut off and my body took up where it left off. So I suppose crying would be a normal reaction if you saw your son covered in blood and didn't know where it was coming from or how bad it was!
It wasn't long before the nurse called me into a room and had me strip him down to a dry diaper. I had to take a minute and compose myself so that I wouldn't lose it when I had to explain the situation to her. She weighed him, took his temperature, and asked me a couple of questions. We were then sent back in the room to wait for the doctor. It took a little longer for the doctor to come in. She came in and of course asked what happened as she unwound the medical tape from his thumb. I explained what had happened and felt like the worst mother in the world since I really wasn't sure what he could have cut himself with. I truly was never more than a few feet from him and had a pretty constant eye on him. I just couldn't figure out how he could have cut himself and had enough time to smear blood all over his body because I was right there! But the blood was rushing from his thumb really fast!
The doctor determined it wasn't too bad, but it wasn't exactly something that could just be left to heal on it's own either! He is only one and the cut was on his thumb. The doctor went to get the PA who she told me does all of their stitching. The PA came in and determined that putting a stitch in his thumb would probably just rip him further because it was on the ball of his thumb. So she cleaned the wound really good and applied glue all around his thumb, being careful to keep it off the cut. She then applied butterfly strips to help keep it closed so it could heal. She then wrapped a little bit of gauze, the kind that sticks to itself, around his thumb. He sat there the entire time just watching her as she did it. She told me that any other kid his age would have five nurses holding them down so she could do it. She said, "he's very curious." I was thinking, I know..tell me about! That's why we are here! He is too curious for his own good!
She then wrapped his hand up so he couldn't remove anything she had just put on his thumb. He didn't like that part so much, but he still didn't have to be held down! She thought for sure he would have the gauze off in no time. But he actually adapted and moved on! He didn't allow his bound up hand to hinder him too much!
I had planned on removing the gauze on Monday. But he was very restless and had been messing with his hand in his sleep. So about 4:30 in the morning on Monday I cut the gauze off! I don't know why she thought he would be able to get the gauze off, I tried peeling it off and couldn't find an edge! So that's why it was cut off! I removed the gauze on his thumb as well as the butterfly strips because I knew he would take them off anyway! The cut on his thumb wasn't shut all the way. Actually it appeared as though it had closed but re-opened because of the moisture. His hand was sweaty when I took the bandage off. So I think all the gauze was hindering the healing process. He even had sores on the knuckle of thumb, the webbing between his thumb and hand, and the top of his wrist. I am assuming it was from his hands sweating all weekend.
We went back to sleep and by the time we woke up again his thumb had scabbed. It's hard to believe that there was so much to-do over such a tiny cut!
It was a clean cut, straight into the thumb! I later scoured the yard for signs of anything so sharp he could cut himself. I came across a coffee mug that belonged to my sister-in-law Tara, who lives right next door to me. The handle had been broken off and one of the edges pricked me as I picked it up. It didn't cut me open, but I could tell that it was sharp enough to! I found the coffee mug in the pool. So my best guess is that he picked up the mug and threw it into the pool. I can't imagine why it broke because it was a plastic pool on top of grass! But I think that he probably leaned over and tried to pick up the handle which then sliced his thumb. So we had to talk to Tara's boys about leaving cups outside that the baby could get a hold of and cut himself with.
Never a dull moment I tell ya!
The picture below is a good picture to give you an idea of just how close we were. I stopped the mower right there by the pool, which is where he was. I had planned on moving the pool and mowing the grass after I put everything back. The bush on the right is a rose bush which sits right next to Tara's house. I was on the other side of that bush putting something back, the side closest to the pool. Just to the left is where my house sits, which you can't see. So really we weren't so far apart and it didn't take me that long to put everything back. Not to mention I stopped the mower right by the pool which is where he was and I never saw him with a coffee mug or bleeding! Kids are fast!
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